Her face
by MidnightShining
Summary: Oneshot of Bankotsu and Sango not Bankotsu/Sango . I don't know what was going through my head when I wrote this, but it turned out fine.


Everything in this new life reminded me of her.

In the wind through the trees, I heard her laughter.

In the flowers peeking through the soil, I saw her face.

In the blood spilt on a battlefield, I lived her death again. And again.

"Brother?"

"Shut up! Just _shut up_!" My hands formed fists, bunching up the fabric at my knees.

"It's just…we're almost there." I forced myself to relax and look up at Jakotsu.

"Right. Of course." I stood and positioned my halberd across my shoulders, holding the handle in one hand.

_He is always careful not to let anyone know about the two of them. He lies and makes up stories to explain where he disappears to whenever he goes to see her._

_One time he asks her, "How can you love me the way I am? I am so weak."_

_She answers, "You are not weak. You are not strong. You are yourself."_

Renkotsu, that traitorous fool, watched me with narrowed eyes. He was probably wondering, forming plausible ideas about my actions inside that cunning brain of his.

"Are we ready to move out?" I tried not to show how much I wanted someone to answer 'no'. I had lost my taste for violence.

_He tells her what he does everyday, and she looks hurt, angry, even scared._

"_Why do you have to do these things?" she says. "Destruction should have no place in our world, yet you…" she can't finish her sentence._

_He apologizes, makes false promises, says that he won't kill anymore. She doesn't believe him._

_They don't speak for a few days._

I fell into the old pattern easily. Slash, spin, block, crash, whack, slash, spin, block…

The almost repetitive motions of battle gave me plenty of time to think.

One girl, the one with the pretty face and fighting skill, reminded me of Her. Of course, She didn't fight. But I got the same feeling from this girl as I did from Her, like they knew the sadness of the world and wanted to fix it.

I let the girl attack me, just to see what it felt like.

_When she tells him that she will have his child, he kisses her and tells her that she must be wrong. She insists, and makes him stroke her belly. _

_He thinks to himself that she might be having a baby, and it might be nice to have a family._

When the battle was over, neither side having gained or lost any advantage, the girl and her companions fled. Jakotsu asked to follow after Inuyasha, but I didn't let him.

If the girl was with Inuyasha and I let Jakotsu loose, she would be dead in a few hours.

And because she looked so much like Her, I discovered that I couldn't bear it if that were to happen.

_Over a few months, she grows larger and larger. The child gives her more color, and she gives off a healthy glow._

_He doesn't visit quite as often as he used to, though sometimes he brings her herbs and suchlike for the birth._

_She asked him to name their little girl, and he told her the baby's name should be Sango._

I found myself growing moodier and more anti-social since when I last saw the girl.

I didn't _love_ her, that much was pretty clear, but there was an almost protective feeling that came over me whenever I saw her in danger.

I wondered a little at her parentage, thinking that perhaps She and the girl were related.

_When the child is due, he leaves his companions and heads to her home. She isn't in the little cottage in the forest, nor is she in the midwife's house._

I polished my halberd over and over again, using it as a sort of excuse for not talking to anyone. Jakotsu, Renkotsu, and Suikotsu were carefully avoiding me, and I welcomed the time alone.

_He combs the forest for her, making sure she isn't dying by the creek or going into labor next to the swamp. She isn't anywhere._

The girl filled my thoughts. I thought, perhaps, that if I could just see her once more, that I would be back to normal.

_He starts looking in all the nearby villages he can think of. She isn't anywhere near the village on the shore, and the little collection of houses at the cliff's edge is so small, he doesn't need very much time to know that she isn't there._

_He moves on to the Demon Killer's Village._

I left my halberd with Jakotsu, telling him I would probably be back by sundown and that if I wasn't he had permission to hunt down Inuyasha.

_He finds her in labor there, in the largest, fanciest bed in the largest, fanciest house. The chief of the village kneels next to her, calling her 'beloved'._

I trotted down the forest paths, scanning the trees and the sky for any sign of the girl or her flying cat. I searched, even though I knew it was much more likely that Inuyasha would find me, with that nose, than it was for me to find them.

_He sits down next to her head, furious beyond comparison and ignoring the puzzled looks of all in the room._

_She doesn't notice that he's there._

"You!" I looked up and saw the half-demon, claws out and in an offensive position.

"What do you think you're doing here?"

"Looking for the girl who was with you," I replied coolly. "Where is your camp?"

_After a few hours a little girl is born._

"_What should we name her?" asks the chief._

"_Sango," she answers._

"_At least you respect my choice in one decision," he says loudly._

_She sees him for the first time._

Inuyasha snorted. "You think I'll just tell you?"

"All I want to do is see her. I don't even have to talk to her."

He snorted again. "Yeah, right." I felt my temper rise.

"_You don't understand-"_

_He laughs. It is a cold sound. "I don't think there is much to understand." He stands and makes as if to leave, then turns back to her and makes one last request._

"_She will never know anything about me. She will believe this filth is her father."_

I opened my mouth to tell him to get a brain and see if he can understand truth _then_, when all the anger floods out of me.

"I had someone I loved, once."

"Do you think I care?"

"HEAR ME OUT!"

_She nods vigorously, with a little too much energy, and tells him that she will heed his will. _

_As he opens the door, she asks, "May I marry this man, Bankotsu?" He pauses, then exits._

"_Do whatever you wish. You are no longer my concern."_

Inuyasha folded his legs and crossed his arms. "Fine. I'll listen."

"I had someone I loved. As you love that priestess. No, _more _than you love her.

We had a daughter."

_He lied when he told her that she was not his concern. He visits his daughter every year on her birthday, though he doesn't let himself be seen. _

_When Sango is two, her mother and the chief have a son._

I explained the whole betrayal to Inuyasha, who looked like he felt pity, despite himself.

"That girl in your party looks so much like the woman I once loved, she haunts me. I see my love everywhere, and now I see her in that girl, too."

_Sango loves her little brother, and everything goes fine for a few months._

"Touching story. Really." I looked at Inuyasha, trying to detect insincerity in that voice.

_One year, he visits her. She looks shocked when she opens the door one rainy night to find him standing there, dripping wet._

_She invites him in._

"But I am not going to take you to our camp. You'll kill us all."

I laughed hollowly.

"With the state I am in right now, I don't think I'll be killing anyone. Maybe later."

"_I know what I said, years ago, but I would like to know my daughter," he says. She looks a little surprised, then shakes her head._

"_She's going to be the chief's daughter. I won't just change that."_

_He stands and realizes how much taller he is than she is._

"Go home, Bankotsu. I listened to your story, that should be enough for now."

_He takes a knife from the table and points in under her chin. She pales._

_He hates the look of terror on her face, but violence in what he knows._

"I will be back, dog. All I want to do is get her _out_ of my head!" I shouted before sprinting back the way I'd come.

_After she dies, he feels empty inside. He flees back to the other six, the only ones who understand. After she dies, he gets more and more reckless, trying to see how far he can push his luck before someone finally kills him._

I didn't actually go back.

I would think occasionally of that girl, and I would notice what she looked like when I fought her, but I gave up on actually seeing her, face-to-face.

As I lay dying, I heard Inuyasha say something to someone named Sango, and then I saw the outline of the girl blurrily through my lashes.

I smiled in my final moments.

**A/N: Honestly? I don't even know what I was thinking when I wrote this. I really don't. But still, tell me what you think. :D**


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